I believe that many people have heard such a rumor: ancient Egyptian culture is forged by Westerners, do not believe you look at ancient Egyptian script, such a messy thing, how can it suddenly be deciphered?
Ancient Egyptian script
Yes, deciphering a lost script is indeed very, very difficult, especially the confusing ancient Egyptian script.
Europeans who are accustomed to alphabetic writing, when they first encountered ancient Egyptian writing, they were indeed blindfolded, and could only be judged by normal thinking: these bells and whistles must be "hieroglyphs", and the meaning can be guessed according to the appearance of the words...
For example, the birds that can be recognized at a glance must be related to birds; different character shapes must represent what they do or identify; and images of snakes, "ropes", "crutches" and so on, are not all very clear...
Yes, at first, Europeans did think so, so they made a fool of themselves at ancient Egyptian scripts, and it turned out that they could not understand what these strange symbols meant when they came together.
Rosetta Stone
An officer of the French Expeditionary Force, in the Rosetta region of Egypt, found a black basalt stele with three inscriptions on it. The first paragraph is the ancient Egyptian script, the second paragraph is the ancient Egyptian popular script, and the third paragraph is the ancient Greek language... Let's say that when you are squatting in the toilet in the mall, you suddenly find a piece of paper pasted next to you, with three lines of text, and the last line is written in Chinese: "Come and go, rush to rush!" ”
Would you think: Oh hey, this mall is old fashionable, write a slogan in three languages...
Yes, Europeans also quickly realized that the three paragraphs on this stele were likely to record the same thing. Since the ancient Greek language can be understood, is it not a matter of minutes to interpret the ancient Egyptian script above?
European scholars in the early 19th century, who were enjoying the great thrill of colonial expansion, were keen on all kinds of novelties. If you can preemptively crack the ancient Egyptian script, you will definitely gain fame and fortune.
As a result, various scholars have taken the initiative and desperately studied the three paragraphs of the Rosetta Stone. And it turns out that even with "bilingual contrast", it is still difficult to understand the strange symbols of ancient Egypt.
As a result, this famous Rosetta Stone is lying quietly in the British Museum, receiving countless researchers. More than ten years have passed, and the experts who are crying and blind are still helpless...
Therefore, cracking the text is really not so easy, even with the Rosetta Stone like the "Golden Key", it is not very useful.
Thomas Young
The British doctor and physicist Thomas Young, the miraculous figure who made the "double-slit interference experiment", achieved certain results in the deciphering of ancient Egyptian scripts.
According to legend, Thomas Young began to read at the age of two, mastered Latin, Greek and Italian at the age of 13, and was able to make instruments such as telescopes and microscopes; began to study Hebrew, Arabic, Persian at the age of 20... We don't understand the world of prodigies, in short, this person is very unusual.
Thomas Young relied on his linguistic talent, day and night of research, and indeed deciphered some letters. But because the stele was mutilated and the expeditionary forces could not understand the ancient Egyptian script, there were some errors in the copied symbols. As a result, Thomas Young could not make more progress anyway...
Champollion
Meanwhile, another young genius in France, Jean François champollion, completely broke the awkward situation.
Compared with Thomas Young, Champollion can definitely be called a prodigy. Born in 1790, this handsome young man, with the help of his eldest brother, learned Latin, ancient Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, etc., and later in order to crack ancient Egyptian, he also learned Chinese... In short, the young genius learned so quickly that at the age of 19, he became an assistant professor of ancient history at a university founded by Napoleon.
You see people, less than 20 years old in the university to become a professor, toto's genius.
Pharaoh's name was circled
Of course, because of the political turmoil in France at that time, Champollion drifted for a while, and the study of ancient Egyptian scripts has not made great progress. It was not until 1821, when he returned to Paris to join his brother Champollion, that he stabilized and continued his research.
The easiest thing to judge in ancient Egyptian writing is the name of the pharaoh. Because their names are all enclosed by an oval frame, they are very recognizable. Researchers have slowly mastered the writing of some pharaonic names by comparing them with ancient Egyptian scripts.
Shang Bo Liang took this as a breakthrough and decided to boldly try a new idea.
Until then, he had always thought that the ancient Egyptian script was "ideographic", that is, each Egyptian character was independent and had its own separate meaning. For example, the shape of a small bird may represent the meaning of "flying".
Now he changed his mind and found the names of two famous pharaohs: ptolmes and cleopatra.
Champolym thought that since both were descendants of the Greeks, the ancient Egyptian writings that recorded their names might correspond to each letter with a symbol. Look at the above two names, there are p, o, l, t, will the ancient Egyptian script really have corresponding characters?
This is simple, a comparison will know. Sure enough, p is all a square, o is like a knotted rope, l is obviously a lion... Only t is stranger, represented by different characters.
But this little problem didn't matter, and Champollion followed this line of thought and went on to study the names of the Egyptian pharaohs. It was not until September 14, 1822, that one of his French architect friends, named Jean-Nicolas huyot, sent some of the materials he had found because he was exploring Egypt.
Shang Bolian found the name of an unknown pharaoh from inside, so he quickly tried to decipher it through the symbols he had previously cracked. Finally, he recognized the pharaoh: Ramses.
It is a historic discovery that Ramses was not a pharaoh of Greek or Roman rule, but an authentic ancient Egyptian. This means that when the Egyptians wrote the names of the pharaohs, they were spelled out in hieroglyphs by means of "pinyin". That is, Egyptian hieroglyphs are not "hieroglyphs" but more like a phonetic script—a symbol represents a pronunciation.
Comparison table of ancient Egyptian scripts
After continuing to study the Rosetta Stone and other materials, Champollion found that the ancient Egyptian script is actually a complex system that integrates ideography and ideographic meaning, with some symbolic sounds and some symbolic ideography... In 1828, Champollion raised a sum of money and finally arrived in Egypt to conduct fieldwork and research to further enrich his theory.
However, after his return in 1832, he died of a sudden stroke due to long-term fatigue and weakness. His efforts have enabled researchers to read most of the ancient Egyptian script, and later scholars have finally had a strong foundation for the study of ancient Egyptian civilization.
Therefore, the deciphering of the ancient Egyptian script really did not happen "suddenly". From the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 to the publication of his discoveries by Chambollion in 1822, countless researchers have put in great effort...